Month: September 2020

Our state premier has said that we can look forward to “a COVID-normal Christmas”. That’s nice, but little comfort for Melbourne’s Jewish community. And Melbourne is where about 55,000 of Australia’s 91,000 Jews live. 

The most holy day in the Jewish calendar, a day celebrated by devout Jews and agnostic Jews alike, is Yom Kippur.  As Gentile Christians, we are perhaps more familiar with this festival’s Old Testament name – ‘The Day of Atonement’. It was held from sunset on Sunday to sunset on Monday of this week (as I write). 

There are two other important Jewish holy days at this time of year too. Rosh Hashanah (The Feast of Trumpets) was held over a week ago and Sukkot (The Feast of Tabernacles) will be held in a few days time. These (and specifically the first two – Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur) form the Jewish ‘High Holy Days’. 

Here in Melbourne, they have all been celebrated in a very quiet fashion this year thanks to our citywide lockdown. 

I hope to write three short blog posts over the coming days looking at each one of these very special holidays from the perspective of a Gentile follower of Jesus.  First, though, I have another question to ask myself.

What is the relevance?

Why should I, an Australian Christian woman of British stock, care about Jewish holidays? I’m not Jewish, after all. But care I do … and the more I learn about these holy days, the more I care.  In glimpsing devout Jews in the city in which I now live commemorating these festivals, I learn so much more about my own heritage as a Christian.

Some might say, and rightly so, that the early church leaders declared at the Council of Jerusalem (described in Acts 15) that Gentile believers such as myself need not be burdened by keeping the Jewish Law. Nevertheless, there is a great deal that we can learn even as spectators of Jewish customs. 

The great apostle to the Gentiles, Rabbi Paul, warns us Gentiles about thinking ourselves in any way ‘better’ than the people of Israel. “You do not support the root, but the root supports you,” he wrote to early Christians in Rome (Romans 11:18). He went on to express his ardent hope that Israel would ultimately turn to God through his Messiah. The details of Romans 11 have confused greater minds than mine, but one thing is clear: we are to honour our Jewish roots. 

I think, from my reading of Romans 11 in particular and the Bible generally, that God has a very special place in his heart for the people of Israel even now. 

Here in Melbourne, there are quite a lot of these men and women who, in Paul’s words, “… God loved on account of the patriarchs, for God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable.” (Romans 11:28b-29). There are devout Jews, agnostic Jews, modern Jews, orthodox Jews and, amongst them, Jews who recognise Jesus as Messiah.

I have appreciated watching online services held by Messianic Jews to commemorate the first two of these three holy days. I plan to watch the third at the end of this week. You can access them too from their website: https://beithamashiach.com 

Crossing Cultures

The good news of salvation through Jesus spread from Jews to Gentiles. Jesus told his disciples, shortly before his ascension, that they would be his witnesses “… in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). That has certainly come to pass.

As the gospel spread, it crossed cultures. This has posed no end of challenges for church leaders over the years. The Council in Jerusalem, mentioned above and described in Acts 15, specifically looked at the question of how much Gentiles like me needed to adapt to Jewish ways in order to follow Jesus. Various other church leaders have met over the two millennia since to seek God’s guidance and set church policies on other matters too (including, though not exclusively, cultural issues).

The gospel continues to cross cultures. Questions continue to be debated. Some followers of Jesus in Central Asia ask questions like these: “Can Christians string prayer flags around their homes if we put Bible verses instead of Buddhist words on them?” “How about prayer beads if we chant Bible words or prayers instead of Buddhist words or prayers?” (Rosary beads immediately spring to mind.)

Where does one draw the line between lifestyle and deep-rooted belief? When is the line crossed? What word should be used for the name of God in certain languages … a local word for the supreme deity with Buddhist overtones or an imported word from Hebrew or something else entirely?

Wisdom is needed today as much as it ever was as the gospel enters new territory. Pray that God will grant wisdom to those who grapple with such matters.

Today, however, I am thinking more about how much has been lost in our understanding of things of God as we – the Gentile church – cast aside Jewish traditions. It’s not wrong. It’s just a bit sad, because we miss out on a tremendous depth of understanding about God and his kingdom.

Festivals

Our premier has promised us a COVID-normal Christmas here in Melbourne. That’s nice. Christmas is the most important festival of the year for many Melburnians. Easter is equally as significant to Christians, but Christmas is more enthusiastically celebrated in my particular culture.

But not all people are like me. Not even here in Melbourne.

Some people in Melbourne are flesh-and-blood descendants of Abraham. What a privilege.

I gave up waiting. 

My hair was in my eyes. I had originally decided to wait for a trim. Surely our city’s virus numbers would come down. Only then I would brave visiting a hairdresser, I had thought.  

Our numbers didn’t improve. We went from level three restrictions to a ‘hard lockdown’. Whenever the wind blew, I looked through hair.

It had been far too long … which was why my fringe (bangs) was far too long. 

And so I watched a YouTube tutorial on cutting hair, picked up a pair of scissors with a shaking hand, and snipped. 

If only it was so easy to quit waiting for other things too. 

Waiting is Biblical

I was honoured recently to be invited to give a talk in our church. It was part of a series called ‘Hope in the Waiting’. My allocated topic, ‘hope realised’, was about two elderly Bible characters – Simeon and Anna. They waited a l-o-n-g time … but in the end, that for which they waited came about. Their hope was realised. The main point of the sermon was this: ‘God can be trusted to keep his promises and fulfil his purposes in his perfect time’. 

It was only when I sat down to prepare the sermon that it struck me that the Bible is FULL of waiting. From the measured daily progress of creation (rather than one quick ‘ta-da’) to all creation waiting in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed (Romans 8:19), we wait. 

Consider these few examples of waiting:

Adam and Eve waited for the promised consequence of eating from the forbidden tree … death.  Yet even in judgement, God offered hope and mercy through another promise about the seed of the woman who would crush the head of the serpent … but not yet. They had to wait … and wait … and wait. 

In Noah’s day, there was a lot of waiting for judgement too … waiting to build that ark, waiting for the animals, waiting for the rain to fall and the waters of the deep to gush up, waiting for the water to subside … waiting, waiting, waiting. 

Poor old Abraham was promised a country of his own and so many descendants that they couldn’t be numbered. Yet he waited almost his whole lifetime before seeing even his firstborn. And then that child wasn’t the one who had been promised … so he had to wait some more. 

Joseph of the multi-coloured coat waited for many difficult years before the fulfilment of a childhood dream.

Space doesn’t permit me to elaborate on the Jewish people’s wait for their promised land, the fulfilment of all that the sacrificial system pointed to, Israel’s return from exile or the wait for her Messiah as promised by the prophets. Think of phrases such as ‘Wait for the Lord’ which appear in quite a few Psalms. The New Testament has a lot of waiting too, for although Jesus came to save us, we still live in a ‘now and not yet’ era.

Waiting is Biblical. 

I’m not a fan of waiting. But that, unfortunately, is irrelevant. 

The marshmallow test

 A psychological experiment about delayed gratification, ‘the marshmallow test’, has become popular again in recent years. Search the internet and you will find no end of YouTube clips about cute kids who are given the choice between one marshmallow now or two if they can wait a few minutes before eating the first. I’m currently enjoying a book entitled ‘The marshmallow test – Understanding self-control and how to master it,’  written by the researcher who pioneered ‘the marshmallow test’, Dr Walter Mischel.

Dr Mischel’s research is convincing.  Overall, preschoolers from the 1960s who could sit with one marshmallow and wait without gobbling it down immediately have matured into adults who earn higher incomes than those who couldn’t wait way back then. They are overall fitter, healthier and less likely to struggle with addictive behaviours such as gambling and substance abuse. 

What interests me is the author’s claim that self-control can be learned and practised. 

My city was presented ‘a path out of lockdown’ today (as I write) by our premier. “We all want to get on with life as we knew it,” our premier explained, “but if we don’t wait for these case numbers to get down to single digits, then we will enjoy two or three weeks of freedom before a third wave. We have no choice but to wait.” 

Not everyone agrees with him, but he claims to have made this decision based on advice from epidemiologists. It feels like a grown-up version of the marshmallow test. We can have one marshmallow now … haircuts, face-to-face social interactions, sports and more … or we can wait. If we wait, we can expect so much more. 

A measure of ‘indulgence’

‘Indulgence’ (versus ‘restraint’)  is one aspect which is highlighted in a series of cultural measurement tools called ‘Hofstede Insights’. (You can read more about it if you’re interested on https://hi.hofstede-insights.com/national-culture .) International companies sometimes use this tool as they navigate different cultures in their business dealings. 

One example of ‘indulgence’ versus ‘restraint’ could be illustrated by the marshmallow test. People from a culture with a relatively high ‘indulgence’ score would be more likely to take one marshmallow now than wait for two. Conversely, people from a culture which values ‘restraint’ would be more likely, in the marshmallow test, to restrain themselves.

In the world of adults, our use of credit cards, rather than marshmallows, could illustrate the difference. In a culture in which people like to indulge ourselves, we would be more likely to run up credit card debts to enjoy some of life’s little luxuries now rather than wait a while. In a culture which values restraint, however, people would be more likely to do without some of life’s luxuries in order to save first and avoid hefty interest rates. 

Not surprisingly, Australia scores quite high on the ‘indulgence’ scale according to the Hofstede Insights tool. Our score of 71 suggests that, overall, we like to have fun and to indulge our impulses NOW. We don’t like to wait. Compare this, say, to China, with its score of 24, which suggests that people there, overall, do much better than we Australians at delaying gratification.  (https://www.hofstede-insights.com/country-comparison/australia,china/ )

I’m not pointing the finger at anyone. In one sense, we are the product of our cultures … and yet, in another sense, we create our cultures. I’m thinking about ‘waiting’ at the moment and realising that I need to work a little harder at living according to Biblical culture norms when it comes to waiting well.

A walk in the park

Waiting isn’t a walk in the park … metaphorically speaking.

I quite literally walked through a park, actually, as I thought about this blog on the topic of ‘waiting’ and dictated thoughts into my phone at the same time. (Under our lockdown restrictions, we are allowed out for one hour of exercise a day, masked of course.) I stopped frequently to admire spring blossoms, comment on strangers’ pet dogs and laugh at the antics of cute kids with ribbons dangling off their tricycle handlebars.

In contrast, two lycra-clad women pumped it out in the centre of the park with music blaring. Kick – punch – lunge – do the plank – run like crazy on the spot – push ups and more. It was exhausting just watching them.

I am reminded of a Bible verse, the first part of which I like to quote out-of-context. 

For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come. This is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance. That is why we labour and strive…. 

1 Timothy 4:8-10a NIV

That’s not to say that physical exercise is not admirable. It is just to say that working on godliness is so much more important.

As the fitness fanatics wait purposefully in the park for lockdown to end, so I wait … kind of. I’m not talking about pushing my body quite like they do, though. Godliness has value for now and for eternity … and so I labour and strive towards that end … kind of. 

That’s the ideal, anyhow. Even as I dictated these thoughts into my phone while wandering about the park, I found myself tightening my glutes and picking up the pace. Physical training is, after all, of some value.

How, then, do we wait?

I’m waiting for more than just ‘covid-normal’ criteria to be set in my city. I’m waiting for all that God has promised us for eternity. 

I think of the fabulous chapter of hope which has been of such comfort to me lately – 1 Corinthians 15. The chapter is about the assurance of our resurrection and an eternity with Christ. It finishes with a flourish … victory … immediately followed by one last statement. We have so much to look forward too, so while we are waiting, the writer urges us to … what? It’s an admonition to work hard.

Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

1 Corinthians 15:58 NIV

I still don’t like waiting. I want my marshmallow and I want it now … figuratively speaking. Yet as a follower of Jesus, I am reminded of the value of waiting. And not just waiting lazily like a middle-aged woman taking a gentle amble in the park but waiting purposefully like a fitness freak in that same park. 

I’m not sorry that I gave up waiting for hairdressers to re-open so that I can get my fringe (bangs) trimmed. There is no point in that waiting. But waiting for God to fulfil his promises and usher in his kingdom … now THAT is worth waiting for. 

And so I wait, working on being godly, looking to Jesus. 

God can be trusted to keep his promises and fulfil his purposes in his purposes in his perfect time.

And so, we wait.